A Moment of Weakness
by zrostar
Summary: Snape receives word, his mentor has been killed. Could he do something to stop it? Would he? -- Short, Complete.


"A Moment of Weakness"  
By: Zero  
  
~  
  
FYI: This is the answer to a challange submitted to me that 'Snape recieves some bad news.' and 'Would Snape use a time-turner?' It's also a very vague tie-in with my fan fic "Harry Potter and the Darknest Night." So it may be a spoiler if you're reading it too.  
  
Rated: 'G' - no sex, blood, or violence. Just moodiness.  
  
Errors: Not yet beta read, probably a lot of spelling and gramatical mistakes. My apologies in advance. I'll have it fixed sooner or later.  
  
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The silver sand sparkled brightly in the dim light of the dungeons at Hogwarts Castle. The sand spun around and around in the small hourglass shaped necklace.   
Snape had found it laying on a desk, in the back of his class room, left behind by the departing Gryffindor class. He knew exactly what it was... and he knew exactly what he wanted to do with it.   
  
The small time-turner tempted Snape with it's innocent intentions. To keep a student up on her studies, yet it was so powerful. It could easily change the events of the future... or past, with a few turns this way or that.  
  
He kicked his feet up on his desk, which had recently had fallen into an uncharacteristic disaray. Next to his black booted heel lay a letter, bound in red and black. The note was from a distant friend of a friend, annoying and alarming at once. It told Snape in a few well phrased sentences that it may take him the rest of his life to understand. It told him of the passing of a great vampire lord. One of the few old ones left.  
  
Snape sighed stairing deeply into the twinkling vortex of magical sparks. His mind working for and against him. A small scar on the Potion Master's throat burned as he remembered, weither he wanted to or not.   
  
---  
  
The Head of Slytherin and Potions Master while he was a boy was a man draped in constant black. He was a harsh teacher and a demanding professor. Loud, angry, and severe. Nothing was good enough when it could be better. He always demanded perfection, in everything, no matter how small. Young Severus had been captivated by the moody, foul-tempered, amazingly intellegent man.   
  
Eventually, as graduation approached, Severus brought his suspicions forward to his favorite teacher. He was never in daylight, and from time to time one of the staff would fall pray to a strange fatigue. The man in quest had remarkably sharp teeth, pale skin, and never seemed to eat. Severus asked the question lightly, not wishing to offend or reveal the Potion Professor's secrets. But, to Severus's surprised, not only did his professor admit readily to his vampirism, but offered him an apprenticeship to take up a more extensive education of the potions art and the dark arts.   
  
Although Severus, a loyal Slytherin, would have jumped at the chance, he was called away on death eater duties. Keeping track of Voldemort was far more important than his carrier.   
  
The mysterious professor was strangely understanding of the trial ahead for young Severus Snape, but his mentor did not leave him empty handed. He gave Snape a deep red kiss, to keep them close and always in contact, in one way or another.   
  
---  
  
They had written to each other off and on for years. The past two months had been silence. But finally news came, however, the last letter Snape would ever get about his mentor. It did not arrive from his beloved teacher, but it was a sorrowful note from another vampire; explaining an age old enemy had finally caught up with the former Head of Slytherin house. Despite the man's age and power, he was finally struck down. He had been defeated.   
  
The small hourglass twinkled at him temptingly.   
  
"What was the mistake you made...?" Snape whispered into the silence of his shadows. "How could any mear mortal defeat you?" His eyes never leaving the tiny jem of magic.  
  
The twinkling grew stronger, calling to him to find out exactly what happened. Maybe even to help his master in that final battle that ended his life. Snape stared, intently, deeply, yerningly. To stand beside him once again, even just to witness his death...  
  
His office door swung open wide, Minerva McGonagal stepped in. "You called for me, Severus?"  
  
He didn't blink, nor move and without acknowledging her, he continued to be transfixed with the item that would be more than able to change the sorrow and anger he felt deep within. His mouth opened, but he did not speak right away.   
  
"One of your pathetic students left this in my classroom." He stated in passing, his voice gruff and quieter than usual. He made no move to return the item.   
  
Minvera looked over her small square glasses, to see that it was Hermione's time turner that held his attention so. She glanced about quickly to see his entire office a terrible mess. Her eyes softened as she looked him, sitting amid the storm of paperwork and potion bottles.  
  
"Thank you, Severus." was all she said, and extended a hand to take it.   
  
"You're welcome..." he mummbled distantly, his gaze not moving. "They finally got him, you know. Romania couldn't hide him anymore."   
  
Minerva's face turned from worried to very sad. "Albus told me. It was quite unexpected. He will be missed here."  
  
"He hasn't been here for years, you foolish woman. You always hated him, to the last breath." Here Snape reminded himself that Dubledore had many strange and unusual friends, an old Romanian vampire was, no doubt, the least of them.   
  
"He was the Head of Slytherin." Minerva stated thoughtfully... "I am sure my students now feel the same way about you... as I did about Professor Mandragora." She eyed him carefully. "Very alike, you two always were."  
  
"Yes. I suppose we were..." Distant again, but this time he moved his eyes from the lovely potential to the utter waste of the time-turner, reaching across his desk to drop it carefully, as if it were a frail living thing, into MacGonagal's palm. "And do tell that silly girl to never leave it behind again." His voice returning to it's former harshness, eyes hardening once more. He added a silent, iOr i may use it next time!/i to himself.   
  
"Thank you, Severus, we are all here in your time of mourning." She bowed her head before silently returning to where she had come from.   
  
Yes. They were there for him. But the one who truely would have understood his pain and anger, was not, and would never be again.   
  
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Began: Jan. 2003  
  
Completed: June 30, 2003  
  
~ Rest in Peace ~ 


End file.
